Epitaph of a Heart
by tomato machine
Summary: Kuroko is no stranger to battle wounds. There are two things she has never been more sure about in her life. The first is that she loves Mikoto Misaka with all her heart. The second is that she does not know the meaning of giving up.
1. Chapter 1

There is a growing wet patch staining through your clothing. You press your hand to the spot, and do not bother lifting it up to your eyes. You are no stranger to the sight and feel of it, the viscosity and stickiness. It is your blood. It is a lot of your blood.

Pressing a hand to the wound, you blink open bleary eyes. Above you, the setting sun makes it look like the sky is on fire. For a second, you are sure the blood draining out of your body is the palette of colours painting the sky all the different shades of red.

You stare, with eyes that have never been more tired, never been more clear, at the grand painting of all the times you have bled for this city. You stare, at your heart and soul laid bare, epithet and epitaph both, for the city to behold.

This is what it must be like to die, you think again, and close your eyes.

That is when you hear it, the crackle of electricity, unmistakable even amidst the howl of the evening wind. It takes all the willpower you can muster to open your eyes, and the stubbornness of a herd of oxen to lift your head up off the ground.

Looking up, you see her walking, calmly, away from you. At least that would be what a casual observer would think. You know better though.

There is a dangerous undercurrent running through the air. You can see it in her purposeful stride, and the sparks shooting forth from her bangs. Mikoto Misaka is on a mission. Mikoto Misaka is out for blood.

The bones in your legs are shattered, you realize as you make to stand. The only reason you have not passed out from the sheer agony is the adrenaline now coursing though your body. Your heart pumps it through your veins, and your stubbornness urges you onwards.

You cannot teleport anymore. The sensory overload from your injuries has you lightheaded and dizzy - too disorientated to perform the complex mental calculations needed. So instead, you crawl. Stubborn, feeble creature that you are, you crawl forward so desperately your nails scratch against the asphalt, leaving bloodied prints and a trail of blood.

You breathe in the fetid stench of your own blood and sweat, thankful then, for the evening winds that sweep by and carry the smell off and away. It cuts to your bones though, and makes you feel like a leaf in the wind.

For every step you crawl forward, she has taken four steps away from you.

Still, you press on. There are two things you have never been more sure about in your life. The first is that you love Mikoto Misaka with all your heart. The second is that you do not know the meaning of giving up.

Your hair is matted to the side of your head - a mix of blood, sweat and dirt. There is a cut upon your brow, you realise that now as blood seeps into your eye.

"Stop moving. Do you want to die?" She stops walking, but refuses to turn around and meet your gaze.

You want her to look at you for once in her life. You want her to see you as an equal.

"If that's what it takes to get you to stay."

She deigns to cast you a sidelong glance. "You're not strong enough to make me stay."

She gives you a pointed look, but then her features grow soft. The look in her eyes become unreadable. "You're not strong enough to come with me, either. Stay here, Kuroko. Stay safe. Anti-Skill will be here soon."

"I won't let you go." You glare at her from your place on the ground.

The Mikoto that she knows is stubborn and kind, and good to her friends. The Mikoto that she knows is no killer.

"What do you plan to do?"

"All that I can do."

She rubs sheepishly at the back of her neck. "Stay there and bleed at me, you mean?"

Through blood-stained teeth, you smile and focus on her, the one bit of your world that is keeping you grounded right now. You remember that fateful day at the bank, that beam of blue lightning from her railgun as it shot forth and saved your life.

Mustering the last bit of your strength, you teleport.

She catches you on instinct, and pulled along by the momentum of your weight, she falls backward and lands on her rear with an "oof".

"You're the most stubborn person I know, and that's saying a lot." She chuckles, and it is the most beautiful sound you have heard in the world. Despite everything you have been through, you cannot help but smile.

"You're not a killer, Onee-sama."

She hums, low and thoughtful in the back of her throat. Laying you down gently, she starts to take stock of your injuries.

"Anti-Skill will be here soon." You echo her words back at her.

She touches you, starting at the base of your spine, then moves on, fingers splaying out over your back. You feel the electricity from her touch even through the fabric of your clothes - a gentle pulse, soothing away the aches, cuts and bruises.

"Stay with me."

Her touch is so tender, like an act of penance. You let yourself get lost in the sensations.

You sigh and lean into her touch, allow your body to grow limp with exhaustion and your mind airy with relief. The weight of your clothes has grown steadily heavier, the blood loss made worse by your stubborn exertions. You breathe in her scent and forget for a moment the foul smell of iron in the air as her fingers linger on a kidney sized bruise along your abdomen. It will bloom black and blue soon enough.

Blearily, you look on as her ministrations continue. Her hands on your body, her attention focused solely on you. Is this not what you always wanted?

It becomes hard to talk.

It becomes hard to think.

If this is how you go, you think, then so be it.

Her fingers skirt the area of your open wound, and you flinch instinctively. She ghosts across it, peels back your uniform with hands as steady as a surgeon's to survey the extent of the damage.

"How well do you think you know me, Kuroko?"

Your unfocused vision sharpens as it meets her gaze. They say that the eyes are a window to the soul. Gazing into hers is like gazing into a storm - a tempest of emotions, each one battling for dominance. At the forefront you see both fear and despair.

You have never felt as close to her in that one moment, and you have never felt so far away.

What does it mean to be The Railgun in Academy City? What has Mikoto Misaka seen?

You make to say her name; you reach out to cup her face. You want to pull her against your chest and tell her that everything will be alright. You do not want her hurting so.

You want to, but you are so tired. It takes every ounce of the strength you have left to stay awake. Even at your best, you wonder how you would hold up in a fight against monsters that make even The Railgun despair.

"Anti-Skill always comes too late, doesn't it? I'm sorry, Kuroko. Grit your teeth. This will hurt. "

You open your mouth to question her, but she is too fast. It all happens in a flash, she steadies your body with one hand and presses the other to the open wound. Your hiss of pain is swallowed up by the blood curdling scream that tears out of your throat as your flesh sizzles and the wound begins to knit close.

Your hands find purchase on an arm and her back. Your fingernails dig in so deep, you are sure that blood surfaces even through the layers of cloth. Try as you might though, you cannot hold on. The pain is too much. Your hands slip away.

Her eyes are the last thing you see before blacking out, the dangerous glint of electric blue in the liquid sheen of her honey brown irises.

* * *

You wake with a jolt, drenched in cold sweat and shouting her name.

When the environment registers in your mind, you stop trashing about and stop trying to rip the IV-drip forcefully off your arms.

You see the world through haphazard snapshots of your environment - the sterile linen, the four walls and the smell of antiseptic, heady in the air. One image in particular stands out, the hand-painted murals of the cartoon animals lining the walls - you are at a hospital, the children's ward to be specific.

You want to laugh. After all you have been through all these years, after all you have done, this is how the world still thinks of you.

Your outburst has roused the other patients from slumber. Opposite you, a little girl no more than ten rubs wakefulness into her eyes and regards you like a strange animal, with curiosity and caution apportioned in equal parts.

From the far end of the ward, three nurses rush in and close in on you. One draws the curtains in a circle around your bed, closing you off from the world.

Another clicks a button connected to your IV-drip over and over again.

You do not know what the last nurse is up to. Before you know it, the world fades to black once more.

* * *

Your friends come to visit you one after another, as reliable and predictable as a flight of stairs.

Anti-Skill comes to take your statement.

Your parents fly in from god knows where. Your mother takes one look at you and bursts into tears. She rushes to your bedside and envelops you in a hug, pulling you against her bosom. She coos words of comfort into your ear. Your father's voice cracks when he says your name, but the hand he lays on your shoulder is warm, and his grip is firm.

For the first time in years, nestled in the comfort of their embrace, you cry.

Everyone comes.

Everyone but the one person you want to see the most.

* * *

The doctors say you pulled through by some miracle. You listen idly as you press a hand to the gauze covering the scar tissue of your wound.

You know better than that. There are forces in this world that are beyond your comprehension. There are monsters in this world in the guise of human skin.

It takes six months for you to fully heal.

It takes longer still for you to forgive her.

It will be two years since then before you will see her again.

* * *

Yo! I hope you guys enjoyed the story. Please share what you think!

Do you know the feeling you get when a new Railgun chapter hasn't come out in months? So you re-read the manga, maybe try your hand at the light novels, then move on to browsing FFN's archives. Before you know it, you've written a story yourself. This, I did...

The title is inspired by a song from the Magnetic Fields - Epitaph for My Heart.


	2. Chapter 2

You turn your head to the side and stare out the window while the doctor tells your parents the news. You are young, so although the path to recovery will not be an easy one, there is a good chance you can regain total motor function of your legs. Your mother sobs in relief at this, while your father follows up with further enquiries into your condition.

You tune out as they begin to discuss the details of what they have planned for you. Their words flitter in and out like the stutter of static from a lost radio station. Sometimes, they talk about you as if you are not there. Sometimes, you really aren't.

It gets harder these days to stay tethered to the present. Often, your mind wanders, whisked off and away by stray thoughts like a bottle carried off by the tide...

Your body has taken you prisoner and nothing feels right. You cannot teleport. You cannot walk. You can barely wiggle your toes without passing out from exhaustion. The pathways in your mind still linger, but the links between them have been all but severed. It is almost as if you are reaching out to grasp at the world with a phantom limb.

Doctors and scientists flit in and out, their white coats trailing behind them like the cruel white wings of a bird of prey. They have you under twenty-four hour surveillance and guard you like a monarch. The ward feels more a prison than a fortress, sequestered as you are in a private room with no company but the humming machines upon which they run their tests. They run brain scans and draw vial upon vial of blood. They keep you under lock and key, exhausting psychometric tests trying to discover a breakthrough or come up with an explanation for your condition.

You did not get to give or deny your consent. It is irrelevant. You are thirteen years old and your parents have already signed the papers, won over by lofty promises of a means to an easy solution. The end result remains the same though. By all yardsticks of measurement, you are now a level zero. Trauma and pain can warp one's personal reality is the reason the scientists come up with.

You have made the news as the first level zero of Tokiwadai. The rumours abound as nurses scuttle about making their rounds. You scoff at the whispers and with your chopsticks, turn your scorn to the hospital food. On the television monitor overhead half the day later at night, an anchorwoman says the same thing while she shuffles papers about. When she moves on to the weather forecast for tomorrow, you press your face deep into the pillow and let loose an aggravated scream.

They keep your identity confidential, and the circumstances deliberately vague, but are just specific enough about your powers and work at Judgement that it is plain to anyone with half a brain and a modicum of awareness about who you are to connect the dots.

The children at your ward erupt into a frenzy of excitement the next day. _A level 4! A member of Judgement! Up close! Well... She was, anyway. What is she now? A level downer?_ The children chitter like sparrows, and flitter about.

They peer at you from the door, or through gaps in the privacy curtain when the nurses bring in a tray of food. When the guard outside sneaks off for a smoking break (the smell of tobacco always wafts in) they crowd around the entrance to your room and dare each other to enter. You are a strange, exotic creature they can gawk and prod at, from a safe distance, with a stick.

It becomes a game to them. Everything is a game to them. Children these days. When you were younger, you were occupied with far more fulfilling matters. You sigh at thought. Part of you wants to shoo them away, or get them to shush. It is a hospital after all, but their antics give you a small reprieve from thinking too much about things.

Today, you spot a familiar face among the gaggle of chubby faces - the little girl laying across from you the night you woke up. Through the glass pane of the door, you deliberately meet her gaze and glare, taking - perhaps too much - satisfaction in her little gasp of surprise as she ducks her head and scurries away.

It goes on like this for a time, and on the seventh day, as abrupt as the tests begin, they stop. When a new anomaly comes, they begin the chase anew and you are simply forgotten by all parties involved.

It has been eight days since you woke up. You would have noted it down on the walls as prisoners are wont to do, but no nurse has had the gall to offer you any colour pencils as of yet. There is still time though. It seems that time is all you have on hand these days.

Outside the window, the sun shines as it always has, and sparrows flit about and perch on old, gnarled branches of cherry blossom trees. Your world has shrunk to four walls and a bed, but outside, the world still turns, same as ever before. You find the thought both comforting and disconcerting.

* * *

In the span of the three weeks you had spent in repose, it appears that Mikoto Misaka has become a taboo word. Whenever you bring up her name in mixed company, they brush it aside, eager to change the topic.

Why hasn't she visited even once? She wouldn't have... She wouldn't have just left without saying goodbye, not after everything you have been through together. Surely you mean more to her than that. Tears prick at the corner of your eyes like the sting from an injection. You would be lying to yourself if you said you did not still love her. You would be lying to yourself if you said you are not still angry.

You try not to think of her at all, less out of spite and more because you are tired, so impossibly tired by the events that transpired. It is difficult not to, you discover. She has become such an embedded part of your life in Academy City that to weed her out entirely seems impossible.

Your subconscious fills the gaps left by her absence, and unfortunately for you, they are a far cry from the rosy and embarrassingly romantic dreams your mind used to entertain. In your dreams, her bangs shadow her face so you can never truly see into her eyes. In your dreams, she stands in the centre of a great storm. You are a gnat sucked into the vortex and buffeted by debris. When you reach out to touch her, she falls through your fingers.

Or maybe you fall through hers. You never remember ever hitting the ground. The last thing you feel is the shock of blue lightning running through your veins before you wake up gasping for air.

What has become of her? What has she done in your absence? If you could only get to a phone, you could at least try to contact here. But no. There are no cellphones allowed on this floor. They say it would damage the sensitive electrical equipment. You think they are full of it. You know they are hiding something, and that only infuriates you more.

Rest, they say. Rest and focus on recovering. Technology offers only distractions. Well, maybe a distraction is what you need right now. Have they _ever_ considered that?

They. They. They. Who are they? Three weeks and nine days ago, they were your friends, family and the trusted medical and scientific staff of Academy City. Now your world has shifted and they are all that is standing in the way of the answers you seek.

You can tell your parents apart from your friends and the hospital staff by the sound of their footfalls. They pace like their aim is to wear a hole underfoot. Your recognise your mother from the rhythmic click-clack her high heels make on the floor. You wonder how much worrying has worn thin her mind and body. She does well to fill the cracks on the most part. Her hair and make up remain done up and immaculate as ever, though she came to visit once wearing a pair of mismatched shoes...

Their presence is... Infuriating. Before, you held in your hands the power to traverse dimensions with nought but a thought, apprehending criminals, and enforcing justice. Now, you are a crippled, broken girl of thirteen. You love them with all your heart, but how could they possibly understand what you are going though?

Lines of scars criss-cross the length of your body, marking you, marring you. The wound at your side is still heavily bandaged up, and it itches like nothing ever before. You peeled back the bandages two nights ago in morbid curiosity and saw the scabs shrink around your red and raw skin, like the tide nibbling at the shores of an island.

* * *

"I hate what this city has done to you." Your mother says wearily while she draws the blinds for the day-curtain to block off the harsh midday heat, before turning her gaze out the window. From your place upon the bed, your view is blocked by her back. "We need to get you far away from here."

You bite your tongue and swallow blood rather than spit venom. You have seen the red rimmed circles around your mother's eyes and the lines drawn gaunt upon your father's face. You do not want to start a war. You do not think any one of you could survive.

You do not want to start a war, but you want them to understand. You suck in a breath and stare evenly at the back of her head, at where her eyes would be if only she turned around to look at you. Communicating with your parents has always been challenging. You say more to each other in the empty spaces in-between words, in subtle, delicate gestures you lack the vocabulary to articulate. But her eyes are turned away from you now, and words, brittle and fallible though they may be, are your only means of getting your point across to your mother, another world away.

"This city has given me the chance for all I ever wanted. It has taken many things away... But it is still my home. " You lay your hand over the wound at your side instead of the wound at your heart, gathering courage, gathering strength. "I belong here, in this city, with my job and my friends."

"I belong here, where I am needed, where I can make a difference. Please, I need you to understand." You catch her gaze when she turns around in surprise and you hold it deliberately, with clear, open eyes. Your make sure your voice is steady, you make sure the hand over your wound does not tremble. "The world is a cruel place, but a city is just a city. Please do not think any worse of it because of me."

"Darling, you do not know what you are saying! You break your mother's heart." Your mother scurries to your side and envelops you in her embrace, while she sobs into your hair.

You groan in exasperation against the crook of her neck, choking slightly on her perfume as it wafts into your nose. Your mother was always a little melodramatic. Affectation or not, it seems like you will always be her little girl. You resent her for it, but you are grateful for her concern all the same. You remember the child errors, how you despise that term, and you are thankful your parents have not simply written you out of their lives for convenience's sake.

* * *

As a gesture of goodwill for your service as a member of Judgement, they offered to remove your mess of scars when the wounds are fully healed. You politely refused. You need your scars now more than ever to drawn upon as strength.

In the golden pocket of time when no nurses are making their rounds and no one is snoring, you trace fingers across your scars like a blind man reading a book. In the easy darkness of the night, you try your hardest to remind yourself.

Your body was a weapon once, sword and shield both, in service to Academy City.

Weapons can be smelted down and given new life when reforged.

And so can you.

* * *

:) Shoutout to all my reviewers! The reason there is a chapter two is because of those of you who wanted to read more.

Where are Kuroko's friends? ): and what became of Mikoto? Stay tuned to find out (if I ever get around to writing the next chapter)! Is it just me, or is the new Railgun chapter taking really long to come out?

A song I listened to a lot when writing this was The Nothing Part II by Lady Lamb the Beekeeper.


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